in it must redound to your credit with all candid persons. The suspicions,
however, which I obtained some time ago as to land-straits and heights of
country being connected with sea-margins and their ordinary memorials still
possesses me, and I am looking forward to some means of further testing the
Glen Roy mystery. If my suspicion turn out true, I shall at once be
regretful on your account, and shall feel it as a great check and
admonition to myself not to be too confident about anything in science till
it has been proved over and over again. The ground hereabouts is now
getting clear of the crops; perhaps when I am in town a few days hence we
may be able to make some appointment for an examination of the beaches of
the district, my list of which has been greatly enlarged during the last
two months.


LETTER 520. TO R. CHAMBERS.
September 11th, 1847.

I hope you will read the first part of my paper before you go [to Glen
Roy], and attend to the manner in which the lines end in Glen Collarig. I
wish Mr. Milne had read it more carefully. He misunderstands me in several
respects, but [I] suppose it is my own fault, for my paper is most
tediously written. Mr. Milne fights me very pleasantly, and I plead guilty
to his rebuke about "demonstration." (520/1. See Letter 521, note.) I do
not know what you think; but Mr. Milne will think me as obstinate as a pig
when I say that I think any barriers of detritus at the mouth of Glen Roy,
Collarig and Glaster more utterly impossible than words can express. I
abide by all that I have written on that head. Conceive such a mass of
detritus having been removed, without great projections being left on each
side, in the very close proximity to every little delta preserved on the
lines of the shelves, even on the shelf 4, which now crosses with uniform